THE

HERE are two faults I have to find with American women. One is this,that they are apt to be deficient in a positive female character. This is certainly true of many New England women. I do not mean that they are in the least masculine. On the contrary, they are often people of a delicate and refined sort; but they appear to be neuters. Their womanly character is rather negative than positive. Now I think that the feminine nature should be as distinct and positive as the male. The female mind should be as strong after its kind as the male's is after its kind. The fault I refer to appears, by the way, to be a quality of well-born and well-educated women. Another fault I

have to find with our women is perhaps the quality of women of inferior education. Many of our women, and particularly our young girls, seem to be wanting in courtesy. Our girls are often rude. A crabbed bachelor of my acquaintance, who lives in Paris, ascribes this rudeness to the fact that American women find it easier to get husbands than the women of other countries, and therefore do not think it worth their while to be civil to men. Whatever the cause may be, there can be no doubt of the fact. I say that these girls are of inferior education in whom this rudeness appears. Well-bred women are often rude, but their rudeness is of the thought rather than of the speech or behavior. It is perhaps nearly as unpleasant to the recipient as the more outspoken sort, but of course it is more consistent with ladylike pretensions. The

rudeness of some girls that one sees seems almost to be an expression of a consciousness of vulgarity.

But it is not enough that women should be civil in speech and bearing while their minds are proud and contemptuous. There is an ideal courtesy in women which is a quality of the soul; it is one of the most beautiful of female attributes. It was this quality in his Beatrice which first struck the delicate and reverential mind of the youthful Dante. I have myself so high an estimate of this quality that I hesitate to say that our girls are wanting in it.

Zwieback is dear for Germany, but really cheap. My breakfast of coffee and eggs in my rooms costs a mark and a half. At the Conditorei, where many people lunch, there is a dreadful clatter of hungry young

women, and it is not always easy to get a seat. But the cakes and pastry are as good as can be. A greedy compatriot, ten years old, who sat at the next table, told me, however, that it was nothing to the cake-shops of Genoa. Some cold meat, a bottle of Pilsener beer, and enough of the cakes to give you an indigestion can be got for a mark and thirty pfennig. If one wishes to be luxurious and extravagant, one can have for no great sum a late breakfast on the piazza of the Kurhaus, in the midst of quiet and of a plentiful sunlight which is delightful to anybody who has been spending the year among cold, wintry fogs, as I have been doing. There are tables d'hôte where you can dine for five marks, including a half-bottle of wine and a fee for the waiter. Besides, there are many Americans, English, and Germans and a few

French here who are giving dinners.

I was glad to meet in the street this morning an old friend, a person of great humor, and the best company in the world. Her presence here has always been one of the attractions of the place to me. She was left a widow early in life, and, although much pursued by men, has preferred independence and the sole control and enjoyment of a handsome property to a return to the married state. I asked her about her new house in New York, which she has just moved into. She said, "What it needs is a man. I told a friend so the other day, and she said: 'The So-and-So's have a man they think a great deal of, and are trying to get a place for; why don't you find out about him?' But I told her I did not want a man to look